Nurses held Day of Action with picket signs

By Murray Green

Members of United Nurses of Alberta sent a message to the Alberta government about its commitment to Albertans and the province’s public health care system on August 11.

Nurses picketed outside the Louise Jensen Centre (5400-46 Avenue) in Camrose.

The message took the form of information pickets where registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses represented by UNA work, as well as other locations throughout the province. Members of other healthcare unions joined the information walks at several locations.

Information pickets took place at more than 25 worksites across Alberta, including Camrose.

In Camrose, signs included messages such as: Don’t Pull the Plug on Public Health Care, I Love Public Health Care, Alberta Loves Public Health System, Stop Destroying Our Public Health System, Seniors Need Nurses, Stop the Cuts and Have Respect For Workers.

After 18 months on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alberta’s nurses are exhausted and overworked. Nurses go to work every day to make sure Albertans get the best and safest patient care possible. They need fairness in the workplace.

“Reaching a new collective agreement with UNA is essential for the province. The reality is that Alberta spends more money per person on health care than other large province, and this can’t continue. We are facing a $93 billion debt, and we spend more than half of the province’s operating budget on public sector compensation,” responded Alberta Minister of Treasury Board and Finance Travis Toews. “We must continue to find efficiencies across the public sector–it’s an essential piece to restoring fiscal health and ensuring sustainable public services.”

Toews’ plan is to propose a three per cent salary rollback, in the form of reduced shift and weekend premiums. All together, Alberta’s nurses are facing at least five per cent compensation reduction.

The UNA believes beds are closing because hospitals are short of nurses. They say this is a result of the pressure on the system caused by the pandemic and a long history of understaffing nursing positions.

“Kenney is right to stand up for taxpayers and push government employees to help shoulder the burden of the downturn,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “It’s not fair to ask families struggling through years of pay cuts and job losses to pay higher taxes because government union bosses aren’t willing to share in the burden and take a cut.”

UNA represents more than 30,000 registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and allied healthcare workers at public, not-for-profit and for-profit healthcare and seniors’ care facilities throughout Alberta. ACTION CALL

Murray Green, Camrose Booster

Local United Nurses of Alberta members and supporters displayed information pickets on Aug. 11, to make known the disappointment in the government’s reducing the number of healthcare workers and rollbacks in wages.

McCorry awarded Hockey Canada officiating honours

By Murray Green

Longtime referee and hockey ambassador George McCorry is the first Albertan to receive the Hockey Canada Officiating Award.

Over the last 55 years, one name has become synonymous with officiating in Alberta, and that is former Camrose resident George McCorry.

“It was a huge surprise and it just isn’t about refereeing. It’s what I have done on the ice, the work on the referee council and in administration as a supervisor working with referees,” said George, now living Edmonton.

“Through the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL), we have been able to put guys through into high performance programs. Alberta tends to be passed over as far as awards, so it didn’t even enter my mind. It’s huge and it finishes everything off in my career. I look back and think where did all of the time go. I think of all of the friendships and the battles you go through. Some you won and some you lost,” he chuckled.

He began his refereeing journey for the first time at 12 years of age. George achieved the top level of refereeing certification, Level VI, by the time he was 30.

“With the AJHL over the last 20 years, I’ve known so many good people. It has been a crazy ride.”

He took on national and international assignments for Hockey Canada, including three national university championship appearances and a role in the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France. Two years later, George refereed 10 games in the NHL.

“When I was on the council, we looked at the safety of the game. I was referee-in-chief for two years and I want to think I had an impact on making the game safer with rule changes. I was part of the group that was instrumental in changing rules to lower the amount of hitting from behind plays and the amount of cross-checking going on in front of the net. I carried that message from provincially to the governing body in Canada,” explained George.

While the list of onice accomplishments is lengthy, his continued work of developing officials may be more meaningful to the long-term success of the game. For over 25 years, George has been an instructor for the National Referee Certification Program and he’s been supervising officials in Alberta for 38 years. He has served as referee-inchief with Hockey Alberta and as chair of the Hockey Alberta Referees’ Council. Since 1999, George has been the vice president and supervisor of officials for the Alberta Junior Hockey League.

“I received my training through the AJHL and they allowed me to get ahead in officiating. That was back in the day when guys like Doug Messier was throwing sticks on the ice. The AJHL gave me the opportunity for a lot of training, which helped me elevate to the university level and into the international level. The Olympic Games was a highlight for me. Until you experience them as an athlete or official, you don’t get the feel of how competitive or huge it is,” said George. “I feel sorry for the ones in the Games now because they are limited on where they can go and take it in.”

On and off the ice, George has been keeping the game in check and teaching the next generation of officials how to do the same.

“Along the way, I had some great teachers. I learned a lot from Bob Prestage. He fired me out of a lot of hockey games when I was playing, but I learned a lot from him. Another guy was Sid Brown. He is one of the nicest guys in the world. I couldn’t afford a pair of skates for $23. About 23 years later, I paid him back for those pair of skates,” he recalled.

“I hope I had a hand in mentoring other referees. There are still a couple of referees in the NHL whom I mentored along the way,” concluded George.